ROBLOX: The Good of the Many
by GreatOverseer
Summary: Grean Overseer, Uuom, Jack Steel, and all the other heroes of Robloxia sung or unsung unite to fight off an unexpected evil. But this is not like the quest for the Roblox Code, or the felling of Zombie Tower, or the defeat of the Associates; this is a threat unprecedented by anything Robloxia has ever faced. And they'll need all the heroes they can get.
1. Chapter 1

It was late afternoon. Children walked with their parents, holding ice cream cones and eating them. They would soon be disappointed, however, because due to the interaction between frozen water and the heat of the sun their creamy delicious dessert would be a rapidly evaporating puddle on the cement sidewalk. A bustle of activity permeated the square in front of a large skyscraper. The floor closest to ground level was large and shaped like a vertical octagonic prism. In one wall, a door allowed access into the room beyond, a room which was stranger than most. On one wall was a mesh of tiny bricks which, when exposed to light refracted from objects within the room, made an image of those objects. It was highly pixelated, so detail was not a priority.

Focus on the wall. We will revert to the present tense to give a more immediate feeling to the following events. The wall is swirling with the fleeting and distorted images of Robloxians walking in and out of six large doors embedded in the walls to the left and right of the mesh. We see a flash of green. The green is very dark, like a photograph of a green shirt taken in almost total darkness. Basically it's black, but with a little green added on. The flash disappears.

Past tense will now ensue.

Grean paused in the middle of the room. He looked at himself in the pixels, and walked back to study himself in front of the virtual mirror. It was too pixelated for detail, however, so he moved closer. His image flickered and warped as the blocks quickly adjusted their hue to fit his. Grean studied his face. Even with all that pixelization, he could see the darkness around his jaw: oncoming stubble. Damn. He didn't know how long it had taken him to get back to New Robloxia. A year? A year and a half?

He was unfamiliar with the changed city that now surrounded him. Apparently, due to updates he could barely imagine, lag in the big city was down by a large percentage. Sure, his movements were glitchy sometimes and he had sworn his foot went through solid ground at least once, but it was definitely an improvement. And now F.E.A.R. had resurfaced, but in a more benevolent form, lead by ShadowXX, and Robloxia and F.E.A.R. were now allies. F.E.A.R. even had its own embassy. The group also owned at least one "parallel universe," which was another thing he didn't understand. He had been of the opinion that there was only one universe: this one. Yet here, now, in the city of his birth, he was in but one of many possible realities. In one universe he'd heard about while buying a cup of foamy espresso from one of the ghastly coffee stands in Bloxxer Square, New Robloxia had been taken over by the Bots and the skull mountains were piling up; and in another, the city was full of pastel horses. Ridiculous, he thought when he heard it. Then he heard of a place called Place Roulette, which could almost instantaneously transport a Robloxian from one universe to another... and take you back again. This, he concluded, needed to be seen to be believed. He would not be able to accept this changed world unless he could experience it for himself.

So now he was here, and really the place was underwhelming. It was just six doors covered by a translucent blue disinfecting membrane, which users walked into and out of with little whirs and flashes of white sparks. The rest of the architecture was dull gray, and simplistic. Really, Grean thought, they should have put some more back into it. If they really wanted to make this the next best thing in Robloxian history, they could have at least put some chrome paint on the walls or put blinking blue spheres of energy on cords along the ceiling or something. The color changing block mesh was a start, but it wouldn't quite do.

Grean broke away from the wall and turned to study the doors. There was a lever inside each, and all a user had to do was pull it downwards. Then it was like a great game of Wheel of Robux: the theoretical roulette of parallel universes was set in motion, and whatever universe the wheel stopped on was the one where you went. Or at least that was what he gathered by the small introductory pamphlet of about a hundred words. He'd thrown that away.

He walked towards a blue membrane, and felt himself pass through. Immediately, all sound was deadened completely. He felt alone in the embrace of possibly unpredictable technology. When had the brochure said this place had been created? Late Grand Year 2013 or something? That was hardly enough time to successfully test a device.

"Don't be fooling me," he said out loud, then felt foolish. Why was he talking to an empty room? He should just pull the lever and see what happens. Slowly he reached out a hand. Out of the corner of his eye he saw another user behind him tapping his foot impatiently, his blonde girlfriend with the shutter shades beside him. Out of guilt, Grean pulled the lever. There was a whir, and a flash of white sparks. The room spun into itself and collapsed like a crumpled paper.

He felt his body being jerked around a lot in the subsequent seconds of blackness. Then he appeared in an eye-wateringly bright version of New Robloxia. He was in the same room he had been in before. A label on the interior doorframe read: "WARNING, DO NOT EXIT THIS ROOM FOR MORE THAN TEN MINUTES OR YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RETURN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME."

Ten minutes seemed like far more than enough time in this seizure-inducing dimension. He walked out through the membrane, and checked his watch. It was 1:31 PM. He would have to return by 1:41 PM. That was doable. Exiting the building, he looked up at the sky. It was a large rainbow spectrum of colors, covered in small pitch black clouds that sped northwards at very high speeds. The clouds also appeared to be going in a large loop. It made Grean sick. What was this hellish dimension where nothing had any facade of sanity? And the people! Oh, they were worse, if that was even possible, than the sky. They were huge, eerily tall, almost stretched, and gabbling away so loudly that Grean felt he was drowning in decibels.

One bent over and looked at him.

"HI, STRAAAAANGER!" he bellowed. It was a whining bellow, like that of a child. Grean noticed that the unusually elongated head was devoid of anything but the most basic of ears. The creature must have been near deaf.

"HELLO!" he shouted back, hands cupped around his mouth.

"ARE YOU A TOOOOOOOURIST-A?!" asked the creature.

"YES!" Grean replied, straining his vocal cords.

"WELL YOU'VE ONLY GOT TEN MINUTE TO LIIIIIIIIIIVE!" screeched the creature. "AHA! AHAAA! HA! HAHA! MUHAHA!"

Grean left. He was done with this dimension. Even the bowels of Banland, he decided, could not be worse than this hell of noise and brightness. He stepped back into the door he'd come from, and pulled the lever to return to his safe and quiet home dimension. Thank Baszucki for that.

He emerged into the universe he knew and walked out of the membrane. Strangely enough, he wanted to try another one. Maybe this next one, he decided, would be better than the last. Anything would be better than the last.

His next lever pull landed him in a large grassy meadow. There were helmeted Robloxians all around him, with the Vortex Security insignia embossed on their sleeves.

"What?" A soldier looked at Grean. "What's a tourist doin' here? They're descendin', they are! You've got no chance!"

"Who's descending?" Grean inquired.

"Look up, will ye," the soldier grunted. Grean did so. There were large cubical shapes coming towards the ground at a slow but steady pace. He checked his watch. It was 1:35 PM, and he had until 1:45 PM. He'd been aching to do something active other than walk around New Robloxia, and this seemed like his chance. He felt in a pocket of his dark green jacket, found what he was looking for, and pulled it out. It gleamed. It was his favorite delhammer, or "deletion hammer," which did exactly what the name implied.

"I think I can help you," he said.

The soldier looked at him.

"What?"

"I said, I think I can help you," Grean repeated. Then he added, "I think. At least, I'm pretty sure. Those blocks up there? They look script guided. Going at a uniform speed is what scripts do. A more complex script'd be saved for a more complex force. These look easy."

"O-okay," said the soldier. "You can help us. Sure."

"I'll need you guys to provide cover fire, though," Grean said as he crouched. The cubes grew nearer. They were silent in their descent, all going the same direction. As the closest one crew nearer, Grean did a small hop and slammed the hammerhead into the ground. The force brought him up level with the cube, and as he brought his hammer down onto it he was launched further upwards, slamming into other cubes and using the shock of deletion to crash the surrounding cubes into others which all culminated into a great domino effect of crashing and burning cubes. None hit the rank of Vortex Security soldiers, but they crashed into some artillery and destroyed it. Grean began to fall through this cloud of destabilized cubes. As he neared the ground, he leveled the hammerhead with precision and let it impact. This caused a softer landing, albeit with some dramatic waves of dirt. Grean checked his watch. It was only 1:39 PM, good enough for him. As the cubes destroyed themselves on the turf, he turned to the soldiers.

"I told you," he said, "provide cover fire. Cover. Fire. Shoot with guns. Ah well, I'm bored here. See you."

He walked to the lever that would take him back, and pulled it.


	2. Chapter 2

As Uuom walked around the stone pillar, he kept his eyes peeled and his shotgun pumped. But this was not the first time he'd dealt with these particular zombies. Long story short, Wukong had hired him to clear some of his property in the outskirts of West New Robloxia. The moderator had found himself in a rather sticky situation when a horde of zombies burst into it and holed themselves inside. By that point, Uuom had already been known as a prodigious zombie hunter, and Wukong had hired him.

Here he was, waiting for the zombies, more or less in total darkness (or at least very dim light). He carried a Pancor Jackhammer, a very rare shotgun that packed quite a powerful punch. He knew this because he had ordered it from one of the more niche gun catalogs; because of the lower demand, the writers had more time to add the special features. This particular model had been painted by its previous owner a rather bright fiery orange and red, with the original black metal still showing through in some places. As a sidearm, he carried a smaller submachine gun called a Magdul PPR. It provided good rapid fire for all those tight situations. Uuom swore by it, preferring over it only the trusty MP5.

But that was quite beside the point of the mission: stealth. And for that Uuom had patched together a rough outfit, but one that was almost silent on the feet.

He peered around a cherub, and saw the zombie. It was the size of a Robloxian, but it was hunched over and its large ragged claws dragged over the ground. A slavering maw exposed glistening stubs of teeth, but the jaw was powerful enough to pop heads off necks. Uuom ducked back behind the cherub. These zombies were nasty. He'd seen them before, in some of the lower levels. If properly neglected, ordinary zombies could mutate into these monstrosities most called Gulpers. Gulpers were far better in offensive and defensive capabilities than your standard zombie.

With a sideways leap, Uuom thrust himself from behind the cherub, lifting the Jackhammer. The Jackhammer slammed backwards with the force of recoil, but Uuom was in the air and the recoil merely pushed him slightly backwards. The Gulper was picked up and tossed like a ragdoll across the yard, slamming into a fountain and splitting in half messily. The sound attracted several more Gulpers and a few regular zombies. Uuom pulled out the PPR and swung a volley of fire over the rank of corpses. They were cut down in great clouds of blood and smoke.

"Glaaarghj!"

Uuom flipped his arm backwards, bent upwards at the elbow. His fist sledded into the face of the zombie running to catch him from behind, and he felt brain matter sliding over his wrist. The zombie jerked and hung lifeless from his hand. Uuom released it and released a blast from the Jackhammer into the remaining crowd of zombies.

It was all over, Uuom thought. Now it was time to find the spawn and destroy it. Spawns were easy so long as you could burn them. Luckily, as with every mission, Uuom was prepared. He had fire grenades, kind of like smoke grenades only instead of smoke billowing out there were almost invisible roiling plumes of flame. He had a great strip of them slung over his shoulder.

The spawner was a 4x4 plate, a faded green color. A vortex with an open center was painted in the middle in black ink. Uuom carefully pulled the pin out of a fire grenade, and tossed it onto the spawner. There was a hissing noise as something that looked like boiling air spurted out of the suddenly perforated sides of the metal canister. The spawner curled up around the edges, bubbled, and burned blue. Uuom sat back and watched it burn into a melted husk, then turned around. His job was done here.

He saw the claws sweep out at him a second before his legs gave way and he ducked. They swished over his head. The Gulper gurgled and swung its head around, but Uuom drew out a fire grenade and slammed it underneath the ribcage of the undead monster. Then he stood up, ran backwards, and took out the jackhammer. The Gulper looked confused, and Uuom fired.

And there was fire.

When the smoke cleared, Uuom walked right up to the smoldering, bubbling pile of flesh, and kicked it aside. He was going to report back to Wukong, get his reward, and leave.

OOO

Meanwhile, in another place entirely (in fact several hundred thousand miles away orbiting the planet of Blockland), a ship was preparing for repairs. On the hull, workmen were patching up the massive holes caused by artillery with copy wands and RepairBOTs. The RepairBOTs made a rather loud and piercing buzz when they worked, so the Robloxians who had to work alongside them jokingly called their job "tending to the hive."

This ship was the RSS-Fortunate, although in the circumstances it was looking to be rather unfortunate indeed. Only a half-hour earlier, it was chief witness to the blaze of missiles, the scream of death, the fire and destruction of battle. It had not come out unscathed; two of the five engines were blown to smithereens, and new ones would not be coming in until next week. Neither repairmen or RepairBOTs could fix the massive damage inflicted on the warp engine. The RSS-Fortunate primarily relied on its warp engine, being at heart a trade frigate and thus requiring a speedy journey to wherever it needed to be. But with the warp engine crippled, RSS-Fortunate was a sitting Epic Duck.

The battle was still raging on the other side of the planet. Already Blockland was declaring a state of emergency, and RSS-Fortunate was surrounded by Blocklandian anti-spacecraft cannon guarding it against attack.

On the hull, a suited figure was placing a large panel overtop of a small wing cannon. He balanced on a thin beam of steel, only a half-blox in width. A small opening in the front of the helmet allowed a (not particularly rugged) face to peer out with eyes that had seen too much and yet too little, whatever that meant. Dark brown hair, tangled but still with some grace and sweep to it, covered his scalp, and protruded from the helmet's top to fall over one eye. The uncovered eye had a scar running over its eyelid and four other inches of face below and above. A shadow around the jaw suggested the bare minimum of stubble.

This was Overseer 2, the brother of Grean. He was working onboard the RSS-Fortunate because he needed the money and needed it quickly. The last leg of his journey from Eidos V required two-hundred Robux, and right now Overseer 2 was kind of short on Robux. The maximum he had been able to keep on his person so far, as a Non-Builder's Club Robloxian, was about four-hundred Robux.

On Eidos V, he had been mugged, robbed, mugged again, robbed again, forced to sleep in a smelly cellar with rats in it, obtained a facial wound (which still, admittedly, stung in the cold of space), killed several hackers who were trying to shift the planet's orbit, and finally stole enough money from their corpses to board a dingy space train to Venezia. There he had signed up as a temporary crewmember of the F.E.A.R. frigate RSS-Fortunate, and here he was now.

He eased the panel onto the gun's side, and with a click it attached.

Then, with a snap, it detatched and plummeted into the void. Space has gravity in the Robloxian universe. You've probably heard this before.

Overseer 2 was silent for a moment. Then finally he exploded into a volatile mess of oathes and swear words.

The workers around Overseer 2 looked at him with concern as he continued swearing up a storm.

"This man okay?" asked a worker to another worker.

"Dunno," said the second worker.

Overseer 2 gasped to a halt, then looked around at his sudden audience.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he said. "Just... mouth ran away from me a bit. Yeah... it ran away. Yeah."

"Well, it certainly ran away," said a worker, grinning, a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth. "I'd reckon it's half a mile away by now."

"Hah," snorted Overseer 2, duplicating another panel of steel and stretching it to the required proportions with another tool. This time he made sure the piece was fastened safely to the gun. Then he observed his handiwork.

"I need a UFO hoverplatform over here," he said at last. "I'm collectin' my payment."

"Right you are," said a worker. He waved a hand, and a roughly disc-shaped craft slid out of nowhere. The worker hopped into the cockpit and maneuvered it to Overseer 2's beam. Overseer 2 sat down on one of the four wing seats, and the UFO glided back inside the RSS-Fortunate.


End file.
